The Duel by Surrealix

[raw]
made by Surrealix for LD27 (JAM)
The Duel is a game of quick actions and even quicker reflexes. I suggest you read the training manual before you begin - without it I guarantee you won't last 10 seconds.

The game is short, but difficult to master. Good luck!

Controls : Left/Right/Up Arrow Keys
Uses WebGL, I recommend Google Chrome.

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Follow me on twitter : @philipbuchanan
Other projects : philip.is/#programmer

Ratings

Coolness 52% 3
Overall(Jam) 3.40 166
Audio(Jam) 1.50 501
Fun(Jam) 2.93 297
Graphics(Jam) 4.15 73
Humor(Jam) 2.56 249
Innovation(Jam) 3.02 274
Mood(Jam) 3.06 242
Theme(Jam) 3.13 270

Feedback

Burhuc
26. Aug 2013 路 13:15 UTC
Fun small game, pretty difficult at the beginning. But with some practice it works :).
pythong
26. Aug 2013 路 13:27 UTC
hmm...nothing happens after I click on duel or training. All I get is a syntax highlighting of the buttontext. I'm on Windows7, Firefox 23.0.1
Crowbeak
26. Aug 2013 路 13:32 UTC
It is too hard for me, but the graphics are gorgeous. I found the trees distracting.
Jan Marcano
26. Aug 2013 路 13:32 UTC
Nice game! Loved the visuals and the challenge was good
馃帳 Surrealix
26. Aug 2013 路 13:33 UTC
pythong: I suspect it's a Firefox/WebGL issue, sorry. I'll have a look at fixing browser compatibility once I've had a bit of sleep.
Joror
26. Aug 2013 路 13:42 UTC
Very finely timed reactions required! So focused during the 10 seconds that the rest of the graphics are ignored though. :P (but I can still admire them before and after ;))
Xgor
26. Aug 2013 路 13:56 UTC
Damn does the look good, It needs a loading bar though as I could start before all the graphics was loaded.
aquilicoco
26. Aug 2013 路 14:04 UTC
too little time to press the keys :)
good work!
as3boyan
26. Aug 2013 路 14:06 UTC
Very hard.
daOyster
27. Aug 2013 路 02:05 UTC
Awesome, just awesome. Such a simple mechanic but so addicting. Couldn't divert my attention until I finally killed him. 10/10 would play again.
LordHellMaX
27. Aug 2013 路 02:10 UTC
Nice graphic style, very challenging!
jay griffin
27. Aug 2013 路 03:46 UTC
Nice look to the game and an interesting and addictive mechanic to the dueling itself. Great to see another duel game in the mix, and one that sets itself apart so well too. Nicely done!
TimKaidem
27. Aug 2013 路 04:12 UTC
Definitely 5 for visuals and innovation. Really nice stuff.
Sinuath
27. Aug 2013 路 04:20 UTC
Really cool artwork, but that old man keeps beating me!
FireZenk
27. Aug 2013 路 09:29 UTC
Hard game but I like the graphics :D
Alexander Ponomariov
27. Aug 2013 路 15:20 UTC
Took some time to master the control) Textures are perfect, nicely done!
zlowrance
27. Aug 2013 路 22:43 UTC
Great spin on the duel mechanic. Makes for some very fun and fast paced gameplay. Good job :D One of the games ive seen so far that I would love to see continued to a polished final product. Do you have any intention of continuing?
blackotus
28. Aug 2013 路 05:20 UTC
Fun and pretty looking game!

It would be nice if you could retart the game by just pressing an arrow key, since you die quite often.

Overall, nice work!
馃帳 Surrealix
28. Aug 2013 路 09:55 UTC
Thanks for all the wonderful comments everyone! It's nice making a game people enjoy playing.

@zlowrance : I'm keen to turn this into a full game, but I'm not quite sure how to flesh it out. I'm tossing up either a 'coffee break' style RPG in a tiny world where the battles are in this style and there are perhaps a handful of small quests to finish the game. Either that or more of a fighter type tournament game with different characters and a loose back story / progression. I'm not quite sure what would keep people playing though.

Comments on what people would like to see in a full game would be much appreciated!
rogueNoodle
28. Aug 2013 路 15:34 UTC
Very cool game, but damn, Eli kicked my butt. Every. Single. Time. :P
Crazi456
29. Aug 2013 路 06:18 UTC
Nice little animations, very cool game! Also I uploaded a windows version of my game like you asked for.
Per
03. Sep 2013 路 18:39 UTC
Makes me think about the sword tutorial in Windwaker :)
Awesome and simple graphics! WebGL rocks :)
Antidote
06. Sep 2013 路 19:01 UTC
I like the game, and the graphics are quite nice ^^ but I'm missing some visual feedback on my actions, to know if they were successful or not. I found it quite confusing, I don't know if it's a timeframe in which I have to press, and if the action didn't count because it wasn't pressed in time, or why some of my actions end up resulting in death, even though I thought it was done right. So I don't know, maybe I'm just a bad player xD But I think some more visual feedback would help (Or maybe even audio feedback, dunno).

Made a video while playing talking about what I was thinking
http://www.twitch.tv/danielsnd/c/2882686

I hit upload to youtube but apparently takes a long time for twitch to transfer it to youtube... So if you're reading this in the future and twitch has deleted the video, you can check:
http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqqAeLLp33Ki1dRAPCiTEtg/videos
馃帳 Surrealix
08. Sep 2013 路 01:19 UTC
@Antidote, thanks for playing! It was really cool to see someone go through the learning curve and be able to understand where the difficulties are. To address your points (and also make notes to myself for later):

- Audio/Sound feedback is a really good idea! It's something I wanted to do, but being LD unfortunately ran out of time. Perhaps clearer visual feedback would help too - it can be difficult to see when the symbols change and if you are a new player there's the extra mental load trying to figure out what they mean.

- Your comment at the end 'maybe it's just really fast' was spot-on. The timing is very fast and there's effectively no learning curve. Maybe starting off slow and speeding up would help this?

- There are two modes, the defend and the attack. You figured out the defence (pressing the correct arrow) easily, but judging by your comments when reading the instructions and playing the game, it seemed that you simply missed the attack part. When the '!' symbol appeared, you needed to press an arrow key (any key).

I think the most important thing to add is an in-game tutorial that runs through all of this individually (and is much slower!). Maybe you start attacking a dummy or target, and then get given a shield and have to do shield exercises, and then the game puts them all together or something. Thanks again for the feedback!
lesterpig
09. Sep 2013 路 14:29 UTC
Nice graphics, but really basic gameplay (QTE).
Where is the theme ? :(
馃帳 Surrealix
10. Sep 2013 路 07:58 UTC
@lesterpig, the theme '10 seconds' is reflected in the fact that you have to survive for 10 seconds to win. Thanks for playing!
lordjosephdeburg
14. Sep 2013 路 23:37 UTC
surviving 10 seconds with eli is no easy task, surprising amount of replay value, beautiful and difficult to master. easily 5 stars